I am forming an investment club with a diverse group of friends and family. My objective in recruiting members was to gain a wide variety of investment perspectives by bringing together people of different ages, income levels, and living in different regions of the world. Our regional spread makes physical meetings impractical.

My idea was for members to make proposals throughout the month in group e-mails with the ensuing questions & debates forming an e-mail chain. At the end of the month all proposals would be consolidated onto a newsletter for voting.

I'm curious if anyone has any insight into running an investment club strictly over the internet. Also, I would be grateful for any foresight of issues with the structure I propose. There are so many advantages to an online format if the procedures can be perfected.

There are plenty of examples of online investment clubs and lots of information on how to run one. See www.betterinvesting.org for example.

However, there's one part of your post that concerns me. You anticipate members living in different regions of the world. If any of them are not US citizens, you will have problems keeping your books and filing your taxes. This is not something that you want to get involved with as the costs will likely far outstrip any gains from jointy investing. To my knowledge there is no investment club accounting software that can handle these issues adequately.

Thanks a bunch. I hadn't come across the site you provided. I also appreciate your bringing up the tax issue. I'll absolutely make sure our one abroad member is still paying taxes in the USA. I imagine Investment Clubs loss their luster quick when they devolve into tax nightmares.

There are a few accounting programs for Investment Clubs - you can find both of them on betterinvesting.org. The accounting programs prepare the monthly club reports as well as the Form 1065 for the IRS and the Schedule K-1's for each member. Depending on your state, you can also print the forms needed to file your state taxes.

www.bivio.com or www.iclub.com -- they both allow you to keep the club's accounting information online so each club member can log in and view their valuation at any time.